Friday
17
Dec 21
Let’s start the family holidays
We have arrived in Pennsylvania. We departed Nashville this morning, an airport experience without incident. Checked a bag, got a free offer to check another bag and so we did. From the ticket kiosk to the desk agent, through security, no problem. The Yankee did the pre check and I went the conventional route. We found ourself on the other side of the security checkpoint at almost the same time.
We had plenty of time for the plane, so we sat and read things for a bit. Boarded our plane, and were told about the upcoming turbulence. There was minimal turbulence. Everything was great, except for the people who don’t understand masks. And also the landing. It was a bit hard, but as I’ve been told before, it wasn’t the pilot’s fault, it was the asphalt.
We taxied a bit, and then the plane was brought to a halt. There was, the pilot said a VIP moving through the airport and everything was coming to a halt. Clearly the pilot didn’t know about the guy sitting in 20F, me, who is literally wearing a VIP arm band.
I got a good two minutes of material out of this, which earned polite chuckles from the people around me. The Yankee, meanwhile, had looked it up. How many VIPs could there be, anyway? It was the president, of course. Air Force One was landing at about the same time, and the president was heading home to Delaware. They shut down everything for these sorts of moves. Entire airports, surrounding interstates, and all of that. But it took a while.
I sent him a note.
I did not send him a note. But it got another good chuckle.
And then our plane moved to the terminal, we got off the miraculous flying tube and went through the building and out the front. My godbrother-in-law (just go with it) picked us up and drove us to his home. We’re spending two nights with their family before moving on to other family events.
An event they had scheduled tonight was postponed because of some of the scheduled attendees tested positive and, following the news, this is obviously going to be the theme of the holidays. But there are children involved in all of this and you roll with the punches, and the kids are used it at this point.
So they decorated gingerbread houses and we had lasagna and I taught one of the girls a little bit about volleyball and everyone had fun. There were three couples and five kids, four of them 10-and-under. It was a whirlwind. That will also be a theme!
How are your holidays starting? I hope they’re pleasant and safe and full of promise.
10
Dec 21
Some things to get you to the weekend
More Savannah stuff! The last of the Savannah stuff! It’d be bad form to try to make you jealous for more than a few days, I’ve decided. And since we got back on Tuesday, I’m sure I’ve worked through those days, and your patience! At the same time, I took a lot of pictures.
This is from Byrd’s Cookies.
And not far away, this is where people buy all of that shade they keep throwing on people.
And, if you need to upgrade your floors while you’re at it, then it’s one-stop shopping.
To me, Savannah will always be about the beautiful buildings — among other things. And, one of those things are the trees! Look at this beautiful nature-is-amazing moment!
And this one is in Chippewa Square.
If all of those old oaks could talk … they’d probably ask, “Where does this Spanish moss come from, anyway?”
(Wind and birds, mostly.)
Back here in the regular world, I spent almost the full day in the studio. First there was the morning show, which will be online next Monday. And then there was a big game design video program. All of the students that work on video games pitch their projects to industry professionals. It’s a four camera, two location, three Zoom shoot. (It just grows and grows, each year, this thing.)
For whatever reason, it has been decided to just put programs like this on Zoom, which means you’d need the link, which means you’d a.) need to know about it beforehand, and b.) have the ability to watch it live. So I can’t show you the live show we produced this afternoon, but it was a good one.
All of the students presenting did a nice job. Some of the games were simply incredible, even in their current form. One of them, it looked like the experts wanted to buy right there during the presentation. And you could see why. It was different, had a pleasing, soothing pace and was absolutely gorgeous.
I had two students playing the role of Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. We were doing entrance and exit standups as the design teams went into the studio. I didn’t get any photos of this because I was working, but take my word for it, they did a really fine job. Everyone was complimentary of their efforts, and we were all quite proud of how they kept the program moving along.
So that was about seven hours of my day, studio stuff. And here are some other studio things I haven’t yet shared here.
A sports show! This one is a little different, it has a different feel and a bit of spunk. I like where they are going with this.
We talked, on Wednesday, about the last show of two of our graduating seniors. Here is that show.
And one more sports show, another talker, where they are unpacking the Major League Baseball lockout. The short version seems to be: If it can be messed up, baseball will mess it up.
3
Dec 21
A Friday in Savannah
First things first, we had to have breakfast at Clary’s. Longtime readers know we always go to Clary’s. Usually we go multiple times per visit for the delicious breakfast and friendly staff. We are doing all of our dining outdoors this visit, and they don’t have many tables on their sidewalks, but after the briefest wait …
Clary’s is something like 118 years old now. Luther Clary founded it as a drug store. Later it became a soda shop and, eventually, the diner we have today. And it figures heavily into the Savannah lore.
We got a little table overlooking Jones Street. This allowed for the traditional Clary’s photograph.
Here’s the first one, which was from our second visit. This was 16 years ago.
Here’s another visit, and from the same table, this time in 2007.
And here’s a photo from the same table on a 2012 visit.
We go to Clary’s a lot.
We’re not just here for the food this time, of course. There’s a 10K that six of our group of nine are running tomorrow. Anne will be the winner.
She’s a natural born runner. And the rest of the group have been putting up some really nice times in their recent runs. Whereas I … well, to say my recent training has gone poorly would be an insult to poor training. The run is tomorrow and I’m just going to have a nice time and try to not be the last person on the course.
I walked seven miles or so today, though, and that counts as training, right?
26
Nov 21
That lovely Friday after Thanksgiving
Today is one of the best reasons to like Thanksgiving. The turkey is great, and days of leftovers are wonderful. Family is, of course, the biggest part of it, and the opportunity to reflect is the actual point. And you can do a lot of that on Friday, too. You can avail yourself of a lot of those things on the Friday after Thanksgiving, as it happens.
This was the morning view:
We had an early trip to the airport to drop off The Yankee’s parents. They’d flown in on Sunday and stayed the week and today was the least expensive flight back out to the east coast. They’re old friends who have retired to Indy came down for turkey yesterday. We had a fine time of it. A lot of toil in the kitchen; a lot of tittering in the dining room.
I said all of the good things on the table were my bride’s and anything bad was something I made, but everything was delicious. We were fortunate to have a table full of food and now we have most of a refrigerator full to enjoy all weekend.
And though the in-laws were back before I woke up from a nap, we’ll see them again in a few more weeks. Plenty of visiting for the holidays this year, happily enough.
We took a nice walk this evening, and I enjoyed seeing this tree on fire.
I hope I get back by there again before it deposits all of its leaves onto the ground.
And here was the almost-sunset. Between the tree line and the neighbors we don’t have the best view of the western horizon.
But you can always walk toward it, and try to make sunset heart hands.
Heart hands, we learned, are a bit more challenging in gloves for some reason. She gave it a few shots, but the laughter was better than the posing. Sometimes it’s like that. It’s always better that way.
And I read Craig Johnson’s new book today. He pulled no punches in the acknowledgments. It’s the theme of this part of his Longmire series, and it’s something you might have heard about in the news recently. It spanned two pages in the layout, but it’s worth remembering.
I prefer the series to the books. The character is here, of course. It’s in the first person, though, which is not my favorite style. And there’s always a scene where the central figure takes a bigger beating than necessary. And he’s a bit goofier in the novels than the way Robert Taylor played him in the series.
And there’s the aging problem. The books are now taking place right after one another, which helps. Each book takes place in a different season, so four books equals a year. So this is year four — and I’ve somehow read all 17 in this series. But the sheriff, in the books, is a Vietnam veteran living and working in a time of smart phones. In this one he directly mentions the 1963 Rose Bowl in which the character played. It’s a different sort of math. Whereas Taylor is 49 or 50 in that scene above. But if you can ignore that part, they’re good reads. The bad guys are always idiots or devious villains. The victims and bystanders have a certain heroic stoicism and some keen philosophy. The sheriff always gets his man. And, usually, a head wound.
That’ll do for now. Have a lovely weekend. See you here on Monday.
